Starbucks boosts Schultz’s pay 80%

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Starbucks paid CEO Howard Schultz $28.9 million in total compensation for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

That’s an 80 percent boost from $16.1 million a year earlier, when Schultz was the highest-paid CEO in the Northwest for the third straight year, beating out top guns at Microsoft, Amazon.com, Nordstrom and Paccar.

The board of directors more than tripled his stock awards to $18 million from $5.5 million a year earlier.

The fiscal 2012 stock awards include $12 million granted in November 2011 for Schultz’s leadership and the board’s “desire to retain Mr. Schultz as the CEO for at least three years following the award date,” according to the company’s annual proxy statement, filed Friday.

The board also wanted to reward Schultz for “his critical role as the chief architect and leader of the Starbucks transformation agenda, which the Company believes was instrumental in achieving record performance over the past several years.”

Schultz’s 2012 pay also included a salary of $1.5 million, options awards worth $6.9 million, a non-equity incentive of $2.3 million and other compensation of $220,733, of which $200,000 was for security costs.

Starbucks’ next-highest-paid executive in 2012 was Jeff Hansberry, president of channel development and emerging brands. He received $4.4 million.

Cliff Burrows, president of U.S. and other American operations, received $4.2 million.

Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead received $4.1 million, and John Culver, president of Asian operations, received $2.8 million.

Pay for Michelle Gass, who oversees Starbucks’ footprint in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, was not disclosed. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires publicly traded companies to disclose compensation only for their five top-paid executives.

Starbucks said its annual shareholders meeting will be at 10 a.m. March 20 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.